from the oh-come-on dept

The Legislative Affairs Committee (JURI) in the EU Parliament, who are in charge of pushing through the EU Copyright Directive put out a "Q and A" page about the Copyright Directive in the lead up to the next round of trilogue negotiations between the Parliament, the EU Council and the EU Commission. As you may recall, when we left things, everything was at a standstill with no one willing to agree on anything. Some are suggesting even worse proposals than have been seen before. The record labels and movie studios are threatening to drop their support of the bill if the EU actually gives incredibly minor "safe harbors" for internet platforms. The whole thing is a mess, and the easiest thing to do would be to just drop Articles 11 and 13 and focus on cleaning up the rest of the Directive. But that's not what's happening.

Negotiations have continued in the background, and where things stand now, the EU is going to fundamentally change how the internet works and not in a good way. They have basically agreed that internet companies will be liable for what users post -- in direct contradiction of current EU law found in the E-Commerce Directive. This will mean filters will become effectively mandatory (in a bit of hilarious theater, the agreement says it does not require filters... but there is literally no way to comply with the law without filters). Very, very, very, very limited safe harbors are still being negotiated over, and are "at risk" of being dropped altogether. Ditto a provision that will make the rules not apply to smaller platforms. Also, still on the table is a "notice and staydown" proposal that says if something does get through, platforms can never let it through again (how this will handle situations where one copy is infringing and another is non-infringing is ignored entirely).

So, as the push moves into the final rounds, JURI has decided that if it can't win this argument on facts, it's just going to flat out lie to the public. Let's dive in:

The proposed "Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market" seeks to ensure that artists (especially small ones, for example musicians), and news publishers and journalists benefit from the online world and the internet as they do from the offline world.

What? There are more "small" musicians and journalists (waves hands!) making money today thanks to the internet, and these plans will completely kill the internet for us. There are more people making music today than ever before. Nothing in this bill is designed to actually help musicians or journalists. It is designed to help lock down the internet for a few giant record labels and news publishers.

Currently, due to outdated copyright rules, online platforms and news aggregators are reaping all the rewards while artists, news publishers and journalists see their work circulate freely, at best receiving very little remuneration for it. This makes it very difficult for artists and media professionals to earn a decent living.

This is utter nonsense. The proposal (Article 11) for online journalists (really: publishers) has already been tried in Germany and in Spain, and it failed in both places (in fact, in Spain, a study showed that it did a lot of harm to smaller publications).

As for musicians, it's never been a better time to be a musician. There are all sorts of ways to monetize, including on services like Kickstarter and Patreon, or on Spotify or Apple Music. Building audiences online has helped numerous musicians build up strong followings, and even created new opportunities for touring. There is no evidence at all that "online platforms and news aggregators are reaping all the rewards." That is a complete and total myth. What JURI is really talking about are exactly two platforms: Google News and YouTube. Google News doesn't run any ads in most locations, so it's not "reaping all the benefits," it's sending lots of traffic to news sites. For free. YouTube, meanwhile, is paying out tons of money to artists who choose to put their music on the site, and has already instituted the most advanced filter of its kind to stop infringement (and it's terrible).

So, how exactly do these laws make anything better? Snippet taxes have already been shown not to work, and the one platform that musicians are upset about, already has the most sophisticated filter on the planet, and it still sucks and causes a ton of collateral damage.

Can anyone at JURI explain how any of this helps small musicians and artists in a manner that doesn't involve "and then we wave the magic wand and Google just forks over cash"?

It is important to point out that the draft directive does not create any new rights for artists and journalists. It merely ensures that their existing rights are better enforced.

This is so misleading that it's extremely close to being an outright lie. It does not create any new rights for "artists and journalists." But it absolutely does create massive new rights for "record labels and news publishers." Notice how that's different? This is a pretty amazing scam by JURI, though, to first argue this is about helping artists and journalists, then claiming it creates no new rights for them, while ignoring that it does create those new rights for the gatekeepers who have a long history of screwing over musicians and journalists.

Nor does the draft directive create new obligations for online platforms or news aggregators. It merely ensures that existing obligations are better respected.

This is an outright lie. It creates massive new obligations for online platforms -- including having to license works that their users upload (which has never been required before) or to install expensive, faulty, censorship filters. There is nothing in there about "better respecting obligations." It is creating huge new obligations. Obligations that will be impossible for nearly every internet platform to meet.

What is currently legal and permitted to share will remain legal and permitted to share.

This, too, is incredibly malicious and deceptive. Yes, what is currently legal for users to share will remain legal. But no online platform will allow for it, because of the massive legal liabilities created by this Directive.

Notice how this JURI defense of Articles 11 and 13 keep shifting who they're talking about. There are multiple parties at stake here: end users, content creators, the legacy middlemen (publishers, record labels, film studios, etc.), and internet platforms. The Q&A conveniently keeps switching between them to try to make points about one while pretending it's debunking claims about others. People are concerned about it creating new rights? Just say it doesn't for artists and journalists (ignoring that it is creating those rights for publishers and labels). People are concerned about being able to share memes? Just say those things are still legal (ignoring that platforms will be required to block them all or face crippling fines).

Hey JURI: Literally two sentences earlier you insisted there were no new obligations for online platforms or news aggregators. Then two sentences later you flat out say that the directive "intends to oblige giant internet platforms" to do something they haven't done before. YOUR OWN DEBUNKING DEBUNKS ITSELF.

Furthermore "pay content creators what they truly owe them"? According to whom? And, again, with Article 11 we already know that it created no new revenue in Spain and Germany, so why lie and pretend this will make any difference there?

No new rights or obligations are being created.

Guys. Literally in the previous sentence you admitted to new obligations on internet giants. Remember that? Who is writing this propaganda?

The draft directive does not target the ordinary user.

There's that switcheroo again. Of course it doesn't target the ordinary user. It just will have a massive impact on the internet they rely on for all kinds of community and conversation.

By contrast, the draft directive will impact large online platforms and news aggregators like Google's YouTube, Google News or Facebook, making it essential for them to correctly remunerate artists and journalists whose work they monetise

And it will do this by stopping "ordinary users" from sharing the kind of content they're used to sharing. This is such an obnoxiously disingenuous tap dance by JURI. EU Citizens should be up in arms about this.

Large online platforms and news aggregators will have more reason than currently is the case to strike fair remuneration (licensing) agreements with artists and media houses who would have identified themselves beforehand as the owners of a piece of work.

Why? There is nothing in the directive that says that. Most platforms will have less incentive to do anything in the EU at all.

A platform or news aggregator will be further incentivised to strike such agreements because, in the absence of them, it would be directly liable if it hosts a piece of work with an unpaid licence fee.

Right. That's why it will censor the fuck out of their platforms. Because you are putting new obligations on those platforms, something you keep denying (while admitting it in the next breath).

The expectation is that the draft directive will push the online platforms/news aggregators to finally roll out a policy to fairly remunerate all those from whose work they make their money.

Again, this has been tried with Article 11. And it didn't work. Why is there this expectation that something you tried twice already and failed with will magically work the third time?

Freedom on the internet, as in the real world, will continue to exist as long as the exercise of this freedom does not restrict the rights of others, or is illegal. This means that a user will be able to continue uploading content to internet platforms and that these platforms/news aggregators will be able to continue hosting such uploads, as long as the platforms respect the creators’ right to fair remuneration.

Except that "fair remuneration" is a concept that you are making up. There is already fair remuneration. That's why more people are making more money from music today than ever before. It's why my own damn company exists. "Fair" remuneration is what the market says is fair. What this is attempting to do is not "fair" at all.

Currently, the online platforms/news aggregators remunerate creators on a voluntary basis and only to a very limited degree.

WHAT?!? This is utter nonsense, and if folks running JURI believe this, they are far more disconnected from reality than before. It is not at all "voluntary." All of the big platforms pay as required by law already. They have negotiated contracts and they all work to block infringing content.

The draft directive will not be the source of censorship. By increasing legal liability, the draft directive will increase pressure on internet platforms/news aggregators to conclude fair remuneration deals with the creators of work through which the platforms make money. This is not censorship.

This, again, is nonsense. Yes, it is censorship. Anyone who claims that "increased pressure" on platforms by making them liable for content on those platforms doesn't lead to censorship knows literally nothing about how online intermediary liability works, and all of the censorship it has already created. Again, JURI doesn't know what it's talking about or is lying. This is bad.

The draft directive sets a goal to be achieved - An online platform/news aggregator must not earn money from material created by people without compensating them. Therefore, a platform/news aggregator is legally liable if there is content on its site for which it has not properly paid the creator. This means that those whose work is used illegally can sue the platform/news aggregator.

The draft directive however does not specify or list what tools, human resources or infrastructure may be needed to prevent unremunerated material appearing on the site. There is therefore no requirement for upload filters.

Once again, this is utter bullshit. You can't let anything infringing on your platform... but we don't say you need to use a filter. Um. How do you block infringing content if you don't have a filter? Who knows? It's "up to you."

However, if large platforms/news aggregators do not come up with any innovative solutions, they may end up opting for filters. Such filters are already used by the big companies!

Wait. Earlier in this Q&A you said that this was all about getting the large platforms to meet these new obligations. Now you... point to the fact that they already are as proof that... there's no new obligation? What? And... if I'm reading this correctly, you make it sound like this is actually targeting smaller platforms that don't have these filters. And, yet you expect them to come up with magical mystical "innovative solutions" if they don't want to filter.

Oh, and here's the real kicker:

The criticism that these sometimes filter out legitimate content may at times be valid. However, this criticism should be directed towards the platforms/news aggregators designing and implementing them, not to the legislator who is setting out a goal to be achieved

Got that? We're demanding that companies do the impossible, even though the most sophisticated attempt at this already shows that it's impossible, don't blame us, the regulators, for demanding the impossible. We're just "setting out a goal to be achieved." What kind of regulator thinks it's appropriate to require the impossible, and, when people point out it's impossible, to shrug your shoulders and blame those who can't achieve the impossible?

A meme falls under the generic rights of ‘citation/quotation’ and ‘parody’. The citation and parody rights are not covered by the draft directive. The draft directive deals with the liability of platforms for works protected by copyright.

This is more disingenuous nonsense. There is no way for a filter or any other magical solution to determine that something is a meme or parody. It will get blocked. There are no exceptions in the directive for "citation/quotation." Indeed, the latest draft still has the possibility of "notice and staydown," meaning that even if it was used for parody of "citation/quotation" platforms wouldn't be allowed to host it without facing massive liability (or licensing work that legally doesn't need to be licensed).

The draft directive has been the subject of intense campaigning. Indeed, some statistics inside the European Parliament show that MEPs have rarely or even never been subject to a similar degree of lobbying before (such as telephone calls, emails etc.). The companies to be most affected by the directive have multi-billion dollar yearly revenues (for example Google’s revenue for 2017 was $110 billion and Facebook’s was $40.7 billion).

Such wide-ranging campaigning generally does lead to impressive claims snowballing; there are claims that the draft directive risks “breaking the internet", or "killing the internet". Since the draft directive does not confer any new rights on creators, nor impose new obligations on internet platforms/news aggregators, such claims seem excessive.

This is also bullshit. We went through the stats ourselves last month, and it showed that over 80% of the lobbying on the Copyright Directive came from legacy copyright industries such as the big entertainment companies and publishers. To claim that the pushback on these plans is due to an aggressive lobbying campaign from Google and Facebook is pure propaganda with no basis in reality. The public is pissed because the public knows how they use the internet, and they know what this law will do to their ability to use it the way they want.

Although the draft directive is aimed at helping all creators have a stronger bargaining position on how their work is used by online platforms, the main beneficiaries will be the smaller players. Larger players often have law firms to safeguard their rights, whereas smaller ones currently have little means to support them.

The smaller players only exist because of the open internet. These bills will literally kill smaller internet platforms in Europe too, because it will be impossible to comply, and the fines will be unsustainable. Meanwhile, again, the internet has enabled so many creators to create and make money... and it did so by enabling all of these different platforms that are about to be body slammed by this ridiculous bill pushed for by cynical opportunists and internet-illiterate policy makers.

It has been claimed that the directive will have a profoundly negative impact on the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people...

The contrary is more likely to be the case: the draft directive’s intention is to help provide numerous people with the livelihood they deserve for their work, and which they require to continue creating. The draft directive intends to ensure that more money goes to artists and journalists rather than Google’s shareholders, a transfer of resources that is always beneficial to jobs.

Again, this makes no sense and is literally contrary to what has happened when the Google tax was tried in Spain.

Is Article 11 going to create a tax - to be more precise a tax payable when a news article is shared?

No. The EP wants to ensure that some money goes from multi-billion dollar news aggregators to the journalist who has done all the hard work writing up an article. These articles, it should be stressed, often dig up the truth and contribute enormously to upholding a democratic system. This cannot be considered a tax.

Again, this did not ensure that money went from Google to journalists in Germany or Spain, and it says nothing about journalists. If the link tax is paid, then it goes to the publishers, not the journalists doing "all the hard work." In the meantime, some journalists (waves hand!) want sites like Google News and Facebook to promote our stuff. I don't need them to pay me. I want them to drive traffic. It's MY responsibility to figure out how to make money off of that traffic.

Besides if -- as in Spain -- this leads Google News to leave the EU, then how the hell does that "help" journalists?

This entire thing is utter nonsense. It's either outright lies or deceitful misrepresentations. This is a Trumpian level of propaganda and bullshit, being pushed by the EU Parliament on behalf of the legacy copyright industries. The people of the EU should not stand for this kind of thing from their elected officials. Remember, nearly all of the lobbying on this issue has come from one side -- and it's not the side that JURI claims is pushing the narrative. Don't let Hollywood get away with this nonsense.

from the battle-for-the-internet-of-things dept

Autonomous vehicles are much in the news these days, and seem poised to enter the mainstream soon. One of their key aspects is that they are digital systems -- essentially, computers with wheels. As such they gather and generate huge amounts of data as they move around and interact with their surroundings. This kind of data is increasingly valuable, so an important question poses itself: what should happen to all that information from autonomous vehicles?

The issue came up recently in a meeting of the European Parliament's legal affairs committee, which was drawing up a document to summarize its views on autonomous driving in the EU (pdf). It's an area now being explored by the EU with a view to bringing in relevant regulations where they are needed. Topics under consideration include civil liability, data protection, and who gets access to the data produced by autonomous vehicles. On that topic, the Swedish Greens MEP Max Andersson suggested the following amendment (pdf) to the committee's proposed text:

Notes that data generated during autonomous transport are automatically generated and are by nature not creative, thus making copyright protection or the right on databases inapplicable.

Pretty inoffensive stuff, you might think. But not for the center-right EPP politicians present. They demanded a vote on Andersson's amendment, and then proceeded to block its inclusion in the committee's final report.

This is a classic example of the copyright ratchet in action: copyright only ever gets longer, stronger and broader. Here a signal is being sent that copyright or a database right should be extended to apply not just to works created by people, but also to the data streams generated by autonomous vehicles. Given their political leanings, it is highly unlikely that the EPP politicians believe that data belongs to the owner of the vehicle. They presumably think that the manufacturer retains rights to it, even after the vehicle has left the factory and been sold.

That's bad enough, but there's a bigger threat here. Autonomous vehicles are just part of a much larger wave of connected digital devices that generate huge quantities of data, what is generally called the Internet of Things. The next major front in the copyright wars -- the next upward move of the copyright ratchet -- will be over what happens to all that data, and who, if anyone, owns it.

from the misinformation-at-work dept

We've had a bunch of posts today alone (and in the past few weeks) about the absolutely terrible EU Copyright Directive that the wider EU Parliament will vote on this Thursday. The version that will receive a vote on Thursday was only just released and it shows that the legislative affairs committee, JURI, that voted for it a few weeks ago actually took a really bad proposal and made it significantly worse. As more and more people have woken up to this fact and started calling it out, it appears that JURI is going on the offensive. And I mean "offensive" in both definitions of the word.

JURI sent sent the attached document to Members of Parliament, trying to defend its position on Articles 11 and 13. The email it sent reads as follows:

Dear Colleagues,

Before Thursday's vote on the mandate of the copyright file, you will
find attached an update on the content of the text adopted in JURI,
accompanied, with regard to explanations, by the text passages of the
corresponding compromises. This to try to answer, once again, the
massive disinformation campaign that we are experiencing.

Thank you for taking note.

Kind regards,

There is only one "massive disinformation" campaign going on, and it's by those in favor of Articles 11 and 13, and JURI is a key player in it, judging from this complete nonsense document. Let's dig in:

ON THE ARTICLE 11

The paragraph 1 of the article makes it clear that the remuneration of press publishers is only an option:

“1.Member states shall provide publishers of press publications with the rights provided for in article 2 and article 3(2) of directive 2001/29/ec so that they may obtain fair and proportionate remuneration for the digital use of their press publications by information society service providers.”

This gives a lot of flexibility to the application of this provision.

Actually, it does not. Remember the original point of the EU Copyright Directive was to "harmonize" copyright laws across the EU, because trying to comply with many different copyright laws was harming the ability to produce and release content in the EU. Under the terms of Article 11, all member states now need ("shall provide") to create a brand new right for publishers. And while the directive gives "a lot of flexibility," that's because (despite requests from many!), the drafters decided to ignore pleas to give some direction on what this right would apply to. It could have only applied to works covered by copyright -- which would require more than a minimal snippet and also would require an element of creativity. But the EU Commission and JURI, bizarrely, refused to include that. Instead, they leave it up to the member states to implement as they want. That "flexibility" means that any member state can put a snippet tax on the use of a single word.

And, then, because the whole point of the freaking directive was to allow a harmonization so that works could be published across the EU, whichever EU country comes up with the most ridiculous, and most limiting publishers' rights will "win" and everyone will have to live down to that standard in order to avoid infringing on this new right. So that "flexibility" actually argues against JURI here, because it's a large part of what makes the snippet/link tax so incredibly dangerous. Without putting any real effort towards protecting the rights of users, but allowing the flexibility for states to create rights that harm the public, it pretty much guarantees that result.

Moreover, it is important to note that Member States shall ensure that authors receive an appropriate share of the additional revenues that press publishers receive for the use of a press publication by information society service providers.

I'm curious if JURI has done any research on how corrupt Collection Societies have been over time. The idea that the money will flow from publishers to authors is laughable. For years we've been collecting stories of how collection societies -- often "controlled" by large legacy industry players -- collect lots of money for copyright licenses, but magically seem to have trouble doling it out to actual creators. Creating a new such collection society and a new right on top of existing rights doesn't change any of that.

In order to answer those who are worried about consequences on social networks:

NO, hyperlinks are not included in this article, and it is very clear in the text:

“2a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not extend to acts of hyperlinking.”

We already discussed the whole addition of the "shall not extend to acts of hyperlinking" text this morning. It's meaningless. The rest of the Article makes it clear that states can implement this in a way that will clearly impact hyperlinks, in part because most hyperlinks contain a snippet. And, again, JURI disregarded requests by many to make it clear that snippets should have to be more than just a single word or phrase -- thus leaving that open.

NO, there will be no impact on individual users since private and non - commercial uses of press publications are not covered by the article.

“1a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not prevent legitimate private and non-commercial use of press publications by individual users.”

This is the most ridiculous part. Most "legitimate private and non-commercial" users of press publications are using platforms to share links. So, of course it will impact them. Even beyond that, it will clearly limit what news and information people are able to find online. Remember, Spain implemented this kind of snippet tax, and a comprehensive study showed that it significantly harmed small publishers. So, uh, does JURI think it can just ignore the evidence? It certainly appears to be the case.

In addition, the right established by paragraph 1 of Article 11 only applies to press publications used by “information society service providers, which are defined in the text, and not to individual users that are excluded in the paragraph 1 (a) of Article 11.

“1.Member states shall provide publishers of press publications with the rights provided for in article 2 and article 3(2) of directive 2001/29/ec so that they may obtain fair and proportionate remuneration for the digital use of their press publications by information society service providers.”

“1a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not prevent legitimate private and non-commercial use of press publications by individual users.”

Same exact point I made above. The fact that it doesn't apply directly to end users is meaningless, since those end users pretty much all rely on the platforms -- the "information society service providers" under the directive -- that the law will impact. Who actually takes JURI seriously here?

ON THE ARTICLE 13 AND ARTICLE 2 (DEFINITIONS)

It aims to make platforms accountable, but not all platforms. Article 13 needs to be seen in conjunction with article 2 of the draft directive.

“Article 2 (4a) ‘online content sharing service provider’ means a provider of an information society service one of the main purposes of which is to store and give access to the public to copyright protected works or other protected subject-matter uploaded by its users, which the service optimises. “

“Services acting in a non-commercial purpose capacity such as online encyclopaedia, and providers of online services where the content is uploaded with the authorisation of all concerned rightholders, such as educational or scientific repositories, should not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this directive. Providers of cloud services for individual use which do not provide direct access to the public, open source software developing platforms, and online market places whose main activity is online retail of physical goods, should not be considered online content sharing service providers within the meaning of this directive.”

Only those that are active, so that optimize the content posted online.

I've seen a few people -- including MEP Axel Voss, who is responsible for this monstrosity -- keep making this point, and it's so ridiculous as to make me question if any of these people have ever actually used the internet. This definition will absolutely apply to a ton of online platforms. That they carved out a few, very narrow and very specific exceptions, after a few organizations complained, does not mean that Article 13 is not a bulldozer coming for a large part of the open internet.

Part of what makes the internet valuable is that it's a communications medium, by which anyone can communicate with anyone. That's the wonder of user-generated content platforms -- and all of those will pretty much qualify under Article 13, because if they accept input from users, that input is going to be covered by copyright. Even the idea that "cloud services" are carved out is laughable, because note the caveat on those: it only applies if they "do not provide direct access to the public." Can you name a cloud service provider that does not include a "share" button? That's what makes the cloud valuable. If it's just to store my personal stuff, why not just park a drive in my closet?

Also, no general filtering measures are included in Article 13. The text even emphasizes that this practice is prohibited:

1.b members states shall ensure that the implementation of such measures shall be proportionate and strike a balance between the fundamental rights of users and rightholders and shall in accordance with article 15 of directive 2000/31/ec, where applicable not impose a general obligation on online content sharing service providers to monitor the information which they transmit or store.”

This is the "plausible deniability" clause similar to Article 11's "but this doesn't apply to hyperlinks" nonsense. You can say that article 13 doesn't create a requirement for upload filters all you want, but when there's literally no conceivable way to suggest you're complying without installing an upload filter, it's a meaningless assertion. Besides, the very next claim completely debunks this one:

However, active platforms need to put in place measures in cooperation with rightholders when they alert platforms about the public availability of infringing content.

1a. Member states shall ensure that the online content sharing service providers referred to in the previous sub-paragraphs shall apply the above mentioned measures based on the relevant information provided by rightholders.”

So... there are no mandatory upload filters... but "active platforms need to put in place measures for dealing with rightsholders. That... certainly sounds like a requirement for upload filters.

Finally, Article 13 will not lead to censorship of the entire internet.

It does not threaten freedom of expression or fundamental rights.

Who are you going to believe on this one? An EU Parliamentary committee that has already shown a fundamental inability to understand how the internet works... or David Kaye, the UN's special rapporteur for freedom of expression, who wrote JURI a long and detailed report explaining exactly how Article 13 threatens freedom of expression and fundamental rights? I'm going to have to side with the UN's free speech expert on that one.

The meme, mash-up, the gifs are already allowed and included in an existing exception and will still be after the adoption of this directive (article 5, directive 2001/29/EC

3. Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the rights provided for in Articles 2 and 3 in the following cases: (k) use for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche

I'd like to highlight an important sneaky bit here. Note how earlier, all of the stuff about online platforms used the word "shall" for implementing these upload filters? Now look at the text JURI highlights here claiming that there are "existing exceptions." See the different word? It's not "shall," it's "may provide." May is different than shall. And not every EU state has provided for such user rights.

But there's a larger point here. We all know that determining what is considered non-infringing as "caricature, parody or pastiche" is not something that is done easily. It's certainly not something done by an algorithm. In many cases it takes years long trials and appeals, with lots of disagreement. Yet, the text of Article 13, and apparently the geniuses on JURI seem to think that online platforms can put in place effective measures to make those determinations (1) in a split second and (2) without any chance of getting it wrong and (3) without a likelihood of taking down protected, non-infringing speech.

If whoever wrote up this nonsense for JURI actually believes that, then let them create such a filter, because it doesn't -- and cannot -- exist.

A provision was even added to ensure a complete protection of users’ data, even though GDPR naturally applies to all legislation:

2.2 Moreover, in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC, Directive 2002/58/EC and the General Data Protection Regulation, the measures referred to in paragraph 1 should not require the identification of individual users and the processing of their personal data.

Again, this shows a rather stunning level of technical ignorance. First they demand that all content be tracked to make sure it's not infringing... and then at the same time, they insist that such a system can't make use of individual data. This is, effectively, JURI telling internet platforms "you are required to base your servers on the sun and... you're not allowed to transmit data through space." These requirements are written by people who have no idea what they're talking about.

Small and medium-sized enterprises

Any platform is covered by Article 13 if one of their main purposes is to give access to copyright protected content to the public.

It cannot make any difference if it is a “small thief” or a “big thief” as it should be illegal in the first place.

Small platforms, even a one-person business, can cause as much damage to right holders as big companies, if their content is spread (first on this platform and possibly within seconds throughout the whole internet) without their consent.

This may be my favorite part of this nonsense. Remember how just a few paragraphs above this JURI was insisting that it wouldn't impact individuals and that everyone was ignoring that Article 13 only applied to a tiny subset of internet sites? Now, here, it's arguing the exact opposite, saying straight up that it must apply to basically all internet sites, even ones that are run by a single person. And they use "one-person business" ignoring the fact that tons of individuals will, say, post ads or donation links on their personal websites, just to pay for the hosting. But that will suddenly turn them into being "commercial" businesses under the umbrella of the censorship requirements of Article 13.

So, which is it JURI? Does Article 13 apply to these platforms or not? Ah, it totally does:

In view of such a small business potentially causing such a tremendous damage to right holders, the compromise text does not foresee any exemption for SMESs.

Seriously, it feels like whoever wrote this portion of the document apparently has never met whoever wrote the earlier part of the document trying to play down how many sites it would impact. Someone should introduce them to each other.

However, the text provides safeguards that will benefit SMEs. Measures must be appropriate and proportionate.

We cannot demand the same thing from an SME as from Youtube.

Since the measures may be very different in nature, from the content recognition system to a simple notification system, there are many possibilities for SMEs to find measures corresponding to their means and size.

Okay, so I run a small platform. You tell me that the measures must be "appropriate and proportionate." I have no freaking clue what that means for me. I don't need to implement ContentID, which is good because ContentID cost more to build than Techdirt probably makes in a century. But... as a small site I'm left with zero understanding of what I need to do, other than block the EU or hire some very, very expensive lawyers who probably still can't stop me from getting dragged into court.

This kind of uncertainty is going to be a massive drag on smaller sites.

Finally, solutions compatible with the Directive already exist on the market, are affordable for SMEs and the market will continue to develop in this direction.

This is what should be known as "the Audible Magic lie." Supporters of Article 13 love to point to Audible Magic -- who makes a filter platform for music -- to claim that there are products on the market. There are a few major problems with this claim. First of all, the idea that they are "affordable" is laughable. As I've noted in the past, we spoke with a smaller platform who noted that Audible Magic quoted them a price of approximately $50,000 per month. That's over half a million dollars a year. And this was not a large site. Smaller sites don't have an extra half a million dollars lying around to hand off to some company to provide a tool that doesn't work very well and which serves no real purpose other than to annoy its users and drive them elsewhere.

Second, such filters may exist for music (and possibly video), but that's not the case for lots of other content. Photos? Not really. Text? Nope. Yet, Article 13 applies to everything.

JURI's attempt to salvage the horrible internet-destroying directive it passed a few weeks ago is confused, ignorant and disingenuous. Hopefully MEPs don't buy it. If you haven't yet, NOW is the time to tell MEPs to #SaveYourInternet. Because if they don't, we're going to have a very, very different internet in the near future. And the public isn't going to like it.

from the the-internet-is-at-risk dept

One of the oddities of the vote a few weeks back in the EU Parliament's JURI Committee concerning the proposed EU Copyright Directive, was that there was no published text of what they were voting on. There were snippets and earlier proposals released, but the full actual text was only just released, and it's not in the most readable of formats. However, what is now clear is that the JURI Committee not only failed in its attempts to "fix" the many, many, many problems people have been raising about the Directive, but it actually makes many of the problems worse -- including saying that online platforms become legally responsible for any copyright infringement on their platforms. This new text effectively says that the internet should only be a broadcast medium, and no longer allow for open user platforms.

2a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not extend to acts of hyperlinking.

So now supporters of Article 11 will point to this new line and say "see?!? it's not about a link tax." Which would be great... if the rest of the text actually lived up to that. Unfortunately, basically every bit of the rest of Article 11 undermines that. Because it still creates a license requirement on a snippet of any length, and most URLs these days include a "snippet" of the headline of an article within the URL itself. Unless everyone starts stripping the text that includes such snippets -- making URLs significantly less useful -- those links will still run afoul of this licensing/tax requirement. Thus, them declaring that a hyperlink is not covered is meaningless if the rest of the directive can only be read in a manner that would include nearly all links.

Once again, it appears this amendment was written by someone who has no functional understanding of how the internet works, and thus does not realize how badly drafted this proposal is. It's the kind of thing a non-technically-inclined lawyer would write in response to people calling this a "link tax." "Oh," they would say, "well, let's just say it doesn't apply to links," even if any reading of the directive would mean it absolutely must apply to most links -- especially any that use any sort of descriptive text. On top of that if you share a link on a platform like Twitter or Facebook that automatically sucks in some snippet text, you're now violating the law as well.

Another change made by JURI is much, much, much more concerning. This is on Article 13, the part about mandatory upload filters. For unclear and unknown reasons, JURI decided to expand Article 13 to make it even more ridiculous. First, it redefines an "online content sharing services" to completely wipe out any intermediary liability protections for such platforms. The most standard form of protecting platforms from liability is to note (correctly!) that a platform is just a tool and is not the publisher or speaker of works posted/uploaded by third-party users. That's sensible. You can then (as the EU already does) put certain restrictions on those protections, such as requiring a form of a notice-and-takedown regime. But, the fundamental, common sense, idea is that a platform is the tool, and not the actual "speaker" of the third party content.

But JURI wiped that out. Instead, it explicitly states that any content shown via online platforms are the responsibility of those platforms by saying that such platforms "perform an act of communication to the public" in showing the content uploaded by users. This is a massive change and basically wipes out all intermediary liability protections for platforms:

Online content sharing service providers perform an act of communication to the public and therefore are responsible for their content. As a consequence, they should conclude fair and appropriate licensing agreements with rightholders. Therefore they cannot benefit from the liability exemption provided...

That's... bad. It's much, much worse than the original text from the commission, which made it clear that intermediary liability protections in the E-Commerce Directive still applied to such platforms. Here they explicitly remove that exception and say that platforms cannot benefit from such protections. As Reda points out, under this reading of the law almost any user-generated site on the internet will be in violation, and potentially at significantly greater legal liability than the various "pirate" sites people have complained about in the past:

By defining that platforms – and not their users – are the ones “communicating” uploaded works “to the public”, they become as liable for the actions of their users as if they had committed them themselves. Let’s imagine a company that makes an app for people to share videos of their cats. If even one user among millions uses the CatVideoWorld3000 app to record a Hollywood movie off a theater screen rather than their kitty, that’d be legally as bad as if the business’ employees had committed the copyright infringement themselves intentionally to profit off of it. The Pirate Bay, MegaUpload and Napster were all much more innocent than any site with an upload form will now be in the eyes of the law.

And that's not all that JURI did. It also outlawed image search with an amendment. No joke.

Member States shall ensure that information society service providers that automatically reproduce or refer to significant amounts of copyright-protected visual works and make them available to the public for the purpose of indexing and referencing conclude fair and balanced licensing agreements with any requesting rightholders in order to ensure their fair remuneration. Such remuneration may be managed by the collective management organisation of the rightholders concerned.

This was not discussed previously and not recommended by the EU Commission. But, what the hell, while they're outlawing Google News, why not outlaw Google Images in the same shot.

There's a lot more in the text, but it's really, really bad. Effectively, the document envisions a world in which everything on the internet is "licensed" and any platform will be legally liable for any content on its platform. What you get in that world is not the internet -- the greatest communications medium ever made. What you get is... TV. A limited broadcast medium only for those who are pre-checked by gatekeepers.

It is incredibly important that the EU not move forward with this Directive. Contact the EU Parliament now and tell them to #SaveYourInternet before they vote on this proposal this Thursday.

from the bad-news dept

As we've been writing over the past few weeks, the EU Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) voted earlier today on the EU's new Copyright Directive. Within that directive were two absolutely horrible ideas that are dangerous to an open internet -- a link tax and a mandatory copyright filtering requrement (i.e., the "censorship machines" proposal). While there was a big fight about it, and we heard that some in the EU Parliament were getting nervous about it, this morning they still voted in favor of both proposals and to move the entire Copyright Directive forward. The vote was close, but still went the wrong way:

Somewhat incredibly, no official rollcall tally was kept. MEP Julia Reda, however, has posted an unofficial roll call of who voted against internet freedom, showing (graphically) whether they voted for the link tax and/or censorship machines:

In case you can't see that here's who voted according to Reda's list -- most voted for both of the bad proposals, but for the few who didn't vote for the link tax, I've noted that separately. These politicians deserve to (1) be called out for trying to destroy an open internet and give in to legacy industries who want to censor the internet and (2) voted out of office next election:

Axel Voss, Germany (who was in charge of this entire thing and who has regularly played dumb whenever people point out just how bad these proposals are. He appears completely beholden to legacy industry interests). Voss's name should become synonymous with the destruction of a free and open internet.

Pavel Svoboda, Czech Republic (voted for censorship machines, but not the link tax)

Rosa Estaras Ferragut, Spain

Tadeusz Zwiefka, Poland,

Jozsef Szajer, Hungary

Francis Zammit Dimech, Malta

Luis de Grandes Pascual, Spain

Enrico Gasbarra, Italy

Mary Honeyball, UK

Jean-Marie Cavada, France

Marinho e Pinto, Portugal

Sajjad Karim, UK (voted for censorship machines, but not the link tax)

Joelle Bergeron, France

Marie-Christine Boutonnet, France

Gilles Libreton, France

Note those last two votes from France, as Lebreton and Boutonnet are both members of the French National Front party, the same party whose leader, Marine Le Pen, has been out and about screaming about how unfair it is that the party's YouTube channel was deleted by automatic copyright filters -- the same filters that her own party just voted to make mandatory for all platforms. Incredible.

This is a hugely unfortunate series of events. Having the proposal approved by the JURI Committee makes it much, much harder to stop this Directive from becoming official. But it is not the end of the road. Reda will be forcing a vote from the entire EU Parliament on the issue:

This is an unacceptable outcome that I will challenge in the next plenary session, asking all 750 MEPs to vote on whether to accept the Committee’s result or open it up for debate in that larger forum, which would then give us a final chance to make changes.

The digital freedom group EDRi has also detailed the next steps in this process and created an infographic showing what still needs to happen:

It will be difficult to stop this freight train after this morning's vote, but not impossible. If you want to see the internet remain viable as a communications platform, rather than seeing it locked down as the new broadcast television, in which giant American companies have the final say in what you're allowed to say online, you should probably let the EU Parliament know sooner, rather than later.

from the no-big-bold-changes-yet dept

On Wednesday, the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) adopted a copyright reform proposal based on the report that Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda released earlier this year. There were tons of amendments and some of the important ideas in the original report were taken out or watered down -- something that Reda readily admits. Former Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter, who had complained about Reda's report from the start, is vocally upset about the outcome, arguing that accomplishing a plan with only moderate ambitions is not what the Pirate Party should be supporting.

That said, there are some real reforms in there, including dropping the proposal for ancillary copyrights, better known as a "snippet tax" or "Google News tax" that many are pushing for. Missing from the final result, however, was support for "freedom of panorama" -- an important concept allowing people to photograph things in public (like the Eiffel Tower). Also troubling was the inclusion of an amendment that says copyright holders need to give express permission for works to be performed in public spaces, which could create a huge mess.

In short, it's copyright reform, but like most copyright reform lately, there's a jumble of concepts mixed in -- some good, some bad. When the US Congress finally gets around to releasing its plan for comprehensive copyright reform, it's likely to be something similar. A mixed bag of decent ideas and bad ideas, each designed to trade off on each other, to try to keep "both sides" happy -- or, more realistically, to placate both sides from being too angry about the stuff they consider bad.

But that's no way to create real reform. I understand how both Reda and Andersdotter feel on this issue and sympathize with both positions. Getting anything through on copyright reform is nearly impossible, so even marginally good changes can, quite reasonably, be seen as a big step -- especially after years of most reforms leaning much more heavily on bad ideas, with almost no good ones. Having a proposal move forward that at least has some good ideas in it is... progress.

But, it's also messy and marginal progress that comes along with some bad ideas as well. It becomes more about the politics of getting something than getting the best result.

And that's where this whole process is a bit depressing -- as is politics all too often. You focus on getting something done and it involves a lot of horse trading and marginal improvements rather than big fixes. It's also why it's so frustrating to see so many people continue to argue that copyright is about "two" competing interests -- copyright holders and the public. That's not the case. An ideal copyright system should be maximizing benefit to both. We should be looking at real policy changes that creates greater overall benefit, but no one seems willing to even entertain that possibility. And, for that reason, I share Andersdotter's dismay -- but not with Reda, rather with a process that is, itself, quite broken. Reda got something through that, frankly, would have been close to impossible a very short period of time ago. The fact that it's pretty limited speaks a lot more to the overall political system today than it does to Reda herself. But these small victories are important for the time being, so long as the overall focus is on creating real reforms in the long run.

from the she-finally-said-it dept

Marielle Gallo is probably best known for the Gallo Report, which Techdirt described back in 2010 as a "similarly draconian intellectual property enforcement" to ACTA, with which it has much in common. So it's no surprise that Gallo has been one of the few vocal supporters of ACTA, and it was widely expected that the EU's Legal Affairs (JURI) committee she chairs would support her draft opinion calling for ACTA to be ratified. As we now know, that didn't happen, and JURI formed one of five committees that all recommended that ACTA should be rejected.

Gallo must be a little taken aback by this turnaround: from easily pushing through her Report with its harsh proposals against copyright infringement, she now finds herself increasingly marginalized within the European Parliament on the subject of ACTA precisely because of its disproportionate measures designed to deal with copyright infringement online. A fascinating interview in PC INpact (original in French) gives us an insight into her state of mind at the moment..

As you might expect, she speaks of the "the disinformation campaign we have been enduring for the past months", the standard line taken by the European Commission and its allies. She also makes the interesting claim that "We're supposed to represent citizens, but since they are busy with other things, we are supposed to think for them!" But she reserves her choicest words for the people who have dared to disagree with the pro-ACTA camp:

It's not only a disinformation campaign. It's a soft form of terrorism that frightens people. People are being scared. It's a fantasy. ACTA has become a fantasy. And that, that's propagated by the whole Internet network.

So there we have it. Anyone who dares to disagree with those politicians doing all that thinking are "soft" terrorists, making subversive use of "the whole Internet network" to spread their "fantasy." It was probably inevitable that someone would play the politicians' trump card -- terrorism – against ACTA opponents; and it's no surprise that it was Marielle Gallo that finally did so.